Italian conductor, harpsichordist and organist Rinaldo Alessandrini and his versatile period-instrument ensemble Concerto Italiano have for many years possessed a reputation for over-the-top yet technically precise performances of Renaissance and Baroque vocal and instrumental music. Their high-octane recording of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons has to be heard to be believed, while their ability to communicate the eroticism, febrile intensity and innovatory chiaroscuro of the madrigals of Monteverdi and Gesualdo is treasured amongst connoisseurs of that repertoire. Here they apply their considerable interpretative skills to Italian chamber music written at a time of musical transition, when the polyphonic textures of the Renaissance were giving way to a more homophonic language enlivened by soloistic flights of fancy. Using the Italian string quartet format, which would eventually lead to the classical string quartet, aand filling out the harmonies with theorbo, harpsichord and/or organ, Alessandrini and his fellow musicians explore music written by travelling Italian composers including Frescobaldi, Torelli, Bononcini, Marini, Zanetti, Merula and Castello. Here are the dances, canzones and fantasias long favoured by Renaissance composers, streamlined and then re-embellished, the resulting sonatas and sinfonias electric with virtuosic passages and sometimes belligerent “conversations” among the instruments. A good example of the latter is Castello’s…

These two major works from Rachmaninov’s last decade form a substantial and varied program, given here in excellent performances and recorded in very vivid Super Audio format. Thirty-something Russian virtuoso Yevgeny Sudbin gives a dashing account of the Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, investing the work with all the requisite drama, colour and wit. Lan Shui and his Singapore musicians are totally committed to the cause and support Sudbin with excellent ensemble. Rachmaninov’s orchestration is brilliantly highlighted by the engineering to the point that everything is very present, and this listener at least lost some sense of sonic perspective on standard audio equipment.Doubtless playback in surround sound would yield added dimensions. Don’t let this caveat, however, deter you from enjoying Sudbin’s considerable artistry. Mention “Rach Three” to music lovers and they will immediately think of the Third Piano Concerto rather than the Third Symphony. Rachmaninov’s symphonies have always lived in the shadow of his piano concertos. Completed a few years after the Paganini variations, the composer’s last symphony did not receive a rapturous welcome and at least one commentator has referred to it as “a sad failure”. Despite all of this, the work does have a voluptuous art deco…

Another young pianist makes a splash with a well-structured and scintillatingly played program. Only 21, Tashkent native Abduraimov won the 2009 London International Piano Competition, and toured Australia earlier this year. If Europe is trying to wrest the piano wunderkind crown back from China, then Abduraimov is definitely the real thing. He takes on the titans in the very first track: Horowitz’s elaboration on Liszt’s piano reduction of Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre. With old-school aplomb Abduraimov produces sparklingly even scale passages, quick clean staccato and over-the-top rubato. Here and there I feel a sense of control being carefully maintained – Horowitz and Earl Wild made pieces like this sound effortless – but what control this young pianist has! Prokofiev’s Sixth, Seventh and Eighth Piano Sonatas were composed in the wake of WWII, and are often called the composer’s war trilogy. They not only form the peak of Prokofiev’s keyboard output, but one of the peaks of 20th-century piano music. Abduraimov toughens his touch in the first movement of the Sixth to conjure up a steely militarism that is frighteningly appropriate. In the pungent slow movement he maps out the dramatic landscape with care and sensitivity, while the Scherzo is suitably light-fingered….

Britten’s Serenade presents a sort of history of English poetry, from 15th-century verse through to Blake and Tennyson, so clear diction is the key to bringing the words to life musically. Tenor Mark Padmore doesn’t disappoint.The Serenade was composed for the composer’s life partner Peter Pears and the great horn virtuoso Dennis Brain. Their 1953 recording with maestro Eugene Goossens (Decca/Eloquence) remains the definitive version, but Padmore and the Britten Sinfonia have plenty of fresh insights almost 60 years on. I’m also a fan of the late Anthony Rolfe-Johnson on Chandos. Padmore doesn’t quite match Rolfe-Johnson’s light, limpid gait in the florid Hymn, but his lean, muscular tone, sweetened with generous vibrato, has more immediate drama throughout. The shimmering Sinfonia strings show finesse in the music of their namesake, while the appropriately named Stephen Bell provides energetic, richly shaded phrasing and precise intonation on horn. Britten’s darker Nocturne for tenor, seven obbligato instruments and strings (1958) shows even more stunning invention from the master of orchestral colour. Most noteworthy are the sinister bassoon and crisp pizzicato of the second movement, delicate harp in the third and the arrestingly powerful timpani solo in the fifth. With so many Serenades in all-Britten…

The most surprising aspect of this CD is that it took until now to happen. Natalie Dessay’s light, nimble soprano has always seemed a natural fit for French art song, yet she has shied away from it on disc, focusing her recorded efforts instead on aria discs and Baroque repertoire. Enter pianist Philippe Cassard, who was so impressed by Dessay’s performance as Mélisande that he wrote to her to suggest this recital of early songs by Debussy. Delicate and dreamy heroines have long been Dessay’s forte onstage, and she conveys those qualities deftly in these lyrical miniatures too – with just a dash of gamine mischief to spice up the proceedings. Her voice has lost a little of its lustre: her upper register sounds threadbare in spots, and there is, as always, a brittle quality to her singing which can be an acquired taste. Yet she evokes the fin-de-siècle milieu of these songs – a heady cocktail of languor and quivering passion – with impeccable style: shimmering in Nuit d’étoiles and Les cloches, trilling her way perkily through Pierrot and turning in a melancholy tour de force in the cantata La damoiselle élue, which features a ravishing cameo by mezzo…

For any recording artist, one of the most exciting moments of the process of making an album is the moment when you’re presented with a cardboard box full of freshly baked CDs. Yes, yes, yes, I know the future (present?) is digital downloads, but the feeling of finality when you receive an hard copy simply cannot be replicated! When I walked away from the ABC Centre in Ultimo with 25 copies of The Good, the Bad and the Awkward I found myself taking a moment to consider all the people who were so vital to its production. One of the most important people in this process is the recording engineer. I have had the great pleasure and privilege of working on this album with ABC Classics engineer Virginia Read, and spoke to her about her thoughts on the recording process. Sally: You’ve had quite a few years’ experience working in the classical music recording industry, with a great variety of artists both here and abroad. What would you say are the most important qualities for a recording engineer who specialises in classical music, as opposed to those working in other genres? Virginia: The most important skill an engineer needs to…

My introduction to Rachmaninov’ s Second Symphony was a welcome distraction from Camus, Jane Austen and Virgil studies for my HSC. I loved it from the start. My introduction to Tadaaki Otaka’s first splendid version, with the BBC Welsh National Orchestra, came many years later and I was equally impressed. He continues to acquit himself as a masterful and instinctive Rachmaninov interpreter in a rendition which wins hands down, in both performance and recording, against Ashkenazy’s tepid, enervated reading with the Sydney Symphony, itself a mere epigone of that conductor’s radiant Concertgebouw version. The secret in this potentially sprawling work is to gauge the pulse of the opening movement, making the ebb and flow convincing and grading the climaxes – in other words, keeping your powder dry. No other symphony I know radiates such a powerfully Russian sense of yearning amid the glamorous scoring, enriched by Otaka’s haunting, affectionate (without appearing to milk every bar of emotion) and ultimately stirring insights. Tempi are well judged – I particularly responded to the precision in the Prokofiev-like spikiness of the Scherzo and the tenuto used to great effect just before the final climax.  A colleague whom I… Continue reading Get unlimited digital…

I always found Christoph Eschenbach a much better pianist than conductor: his 1968 recording of Beethoven’s First Concerto with Karajan was unforgettable and his insights into the Op 111 Sonata many years later ranks among the best. By contrast, his conducting often seems stodgy. So this stunning performance and recording of the Missa Solemnis came as a revelation. The London Philharmonic Orchestra is in sizzling and quite virtuosic form. Running to just over 80 minutes, tempos are mainstream. I was hurtled backward in my chair – like, I imagine, most of the audience – with the velocity and ferocity of the choral fugue in the Gloria. The (appropriately) manic sound of the choir in Beethoven’s cruel tessitura of this paroxysm remind me that he may well have been mad when he composed it. The singing is largely undiffereniated and unnuanced and the diction is pretty unclear, but the result is impressive nonetheless. No one will ever eclipse Klemperer’s implacable juggernaut (EMI) here. The soloists are more than satisfactory, although the soprano Anne Schwanewilms and Nicolai Schukoff are the most distinguished of the four. Dietrich Henschel is no Martti Talvela. Pieter Schoeman’s solo violin in the Benedictus is balm… Continue reading…

I am not a morning person. I am, however, a card-carrying member of the Peter Coleman-Wright fan club, which is how it came to pass that on my last full day on London — with a late night of Wagner and of post-Wagner revels ahead of me — I dragged myself out of bed several hours ahead of schedule in order to be at the final dress rehearsal of the English National Opera’s production of Detlev Glanert’s opera Caligula. But anyway, who was I to complain? I only had to sit back and listen; the cast had to sing a seriously demanding opera at 10am — and sing it they most certainly did. The opera, which premiered in 2006, is based on a play by Albert Camus. It’s a disturbing trip into the mind of a burgeoning tyrant: Caligula, stricken with grief at the death of his sister (and lover…but somehow their incest is far less picturesque than Siegmund and Sieglinde) Drusilla, turns into, well, the Caligula we all know and love to detest. Raping, pillaging, murdering and so on, all the while haunted by his sister and his own continuing struggle with the notions of freedom and of happiness….

Before looking at the actual selection process, it’s important to consider why we need to make a selection at all. As each Steinway & Sons piano is hand-crafted, they each have their own unique identity, with subtle differences in feel and tone. Due to the differences in each piano, we are able to select the instruments based on their intended use; for example, the characteristics of a piano destined for a large concert hall would be different from those required for a smaller, more intimate venue. Different acoustic environments will represent each piano in a unique way. For the Sydney International Piano Competition, there were some considerations that we needed to take into account. The competitors don’t get time to really practise and familiarise themselves with the instrument; rather, they just have to be ready to jump in and play their best. Also, as you could imagine, the competitors can be quite nervous by the time they get to playing the pianos, so it’s important to have an instrument that is instantly comfortable for them to play, and can easily deliver a big sound, with a large dynamic range. Selecting the pianos with Alexander Gavrylyuk was a real pleasure. Alexander…

They say it takes 10,000 hours of dedicated work to become an expert. I would argue that many classical musicians bring this level of commitment to their craft before they even begin university studies. For the majority, studying music at university is an opportunity to refine skills, immerse oneself in rigorous practice schemes and transform from being “that kid who played music at school” to being a musician with creative vision, ideas and the skills to make a difference in the community. Integral to this stage of developing a young musician’s career is their instrumental teacher – someone who provides inspiration, guidance, musical expertise and often an approach to performing that has been handed down from one generation to the next.   It was with great sadness that I read this morning on a flight from London about the severe cuts the Australian National University is making to its revered School of Music. Flying in the face of logic, a decision to remove one-on-one tuition seems to me to be taking away the most essential and important aspect of a classical musician’s training. It’s not unlike removing the practical component in the training of a surgeon. A decision of this…

For a small seaside town with a population of no more than 3,000, there’s an unusual buzz in the air in Aldeburgh. Once home to the legendary English composer Benjamin Britten, Aldeburgh and nearby Snape are annual hosts for the renowned Aldeburgh Festival and Britten-Pears Young Artist Programs. But this year marks an exciting new project which will see the world sharpen its focus on England like never before. I’m not just talking about the Olympics though; rather the 2012 London Festival and Cultural Olympiad, for which Aldeburgh is playing host to a new world orchestra.  124 young musicians from across the globe will come together in July, led by acclaimed conductor Sir Mark Elder in a thrilling program of Britten, Mahler, Shostakovich and Stravinsky. Performances will take place in a number of European locations including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw and Ingolstadt’s Audi Festival, culminating in a final performance in London at Royal Albert Hall.  This past week I’ve been fortunate to get a glimpse into this exciting project as a member of the Britten-Pears Orchestra. A steady stream of media has filtered through the small town of Aldeburgh to catch a glimpse of rehearsals and a 40-piece contingent of the…